The National Mental Health and Disability Employment Strategy Update - Setting the Direction was released by the Hon Brendan O'Connor, Minister for Employment Participation, and the Hon Bill Shorten MP, Parliamentary Secretary for Disabilities and Children's Services on 22 December 2008. 

The first Board meeting of ACCAN has elected office bearers for the new telecommunications consumer peak representation body, ACCAN.

The Minister for Broadband, Communications and the Digital Economy, Senator Stephen Conroy, welcomed the appointments.

For more details, see http://www.minister.dbcde.gov.au/media/media_releases/2008/099

In December 2008 the Australian Institute for Health and Welfare and the Office for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Health, Australian Department of Health and Ageing released a report on the Progress of the Northern Territory Emergency Response Child Health Check Initiative.

The report shows preliminary results from the Child Health Check and follow-up data collections.Some interesting statistics include:

Christmas is a time for giving. But Deafness Forum warns of the dangers of loud toys and possible noise-induced hearing loss.

For more details see Media release - noisy toys

Thanks for showing your support for captioning, which enabled us to get Channel 9 to reinstate the captioned programs. 

The Daily Telegraph had an article on 13 December 2008, see http://www.news.com.au/dailytelegraph/story/0,22049,24791279-5005941,00.html